03 help

[chrisr1984]

i have win 2003 server set up at home for a print/web server. im have trouble printing. I have to go to my network places then to my server and type in username and password then it will print. how can I set it up not to do this any more. thanks for any help

[gunderstone]

If the Windows Server 2003 system is set up only as a server in a workgroup (and not as a member of a domain) you will need to authenticate to it (connect to it) prior to printing.

You are probably logging on locally to your Windows workstation (2000 or XP) and when you attempt to print to the Windows Server 2003 system it does not who you are (since you authenticated to the desktop and not to the server) so it will not respond to your print requests until you authenticate.

You'll need to:

Map a drive to the print$ share (or some other share) via a start up script when you first log on to the client system so that you authenticate to the Windows Server 2003 system which will allow you to print (I actually map drives to the default administrative shares of all of the systems on my home network; it's a simple net use command that I have in a batch file so I have connectivity to all my systems at startup including the one system that has the laser printer attached:

net use u: \\<SYSTEMNAME>\C$ /user:<SYSTEMNAME>\<LOCAL_ACCOUNT> <PASSWORD>
net use v: \\<SYSTEMNAME>\D$ /user:<SYSTEMNAME>\<LOCAL_ACCOUNT> <PASSWORD>
net use w: \\<SYSTEMNAME2>\c$ /user:<SYSTEMNAME2>\<LOCAL_ACCOUNT> <PASSWORD>
net use x: \\<SYSTEMNAME2>\f$ /user:<SYSTEMNAME2>\<LOCAL_ACCOUNT> <PASSWORD>
net use y: \\<SYSTEMNAME3>\c$ /user:<SYSTEMNAME3>\<LOCAL_ACCOUNT> <PASSWORD>
net use z: \\<SYSTEMNAME4>\c$ /user:<SYSTEMNAME4>\<LOCAL_ACCOUNT> <PASSWORD>


or

You'll need to create a domain, add the Windows Server 2003 system and your workstation to the domain and then log on to the domain with a domain user account. As long as the domain user account has print access to the Windows Server 2003 system you'll be able to print without doing anything else.

or

You'll need to get a network hardware device that functions as a print server and attach the printer to it. Off the top of my head I know that Linksys makes these and I am willing to bet so does DLink and others without even looking.